Online entrepreneur Nicole Dean teaches internet marketing tips and strategies. She also interviews other successful internet business owners to find out the secrets to their online success. Find out what they're doing that you're not.

How to Finish your InfoProduct-
a Guide for Chronically Stuck Internet Marketers

by Alice Seba

A couple of week’s ago, Nicole posted her Quote of the week. It went like this:

It sounds pretty straightforward, right? It’s a real no-brainer…or so it seems. I’ve talked to a lot online business owners over the years and they almost always have something unfinished. I’ve been guilty of it now and then as well.

The reasons for this incompleteness are manifold. Sometimes it’s a lack of confidence in the product creator’s ability to provide good information. Other times it’s a matter of simply feeling it’s unfinished and thinking there could always be more added before it’s perfect. Often it’s a lack of time and the project is something that gets put on the back burner to everything else. For you, there may be other reasons.

But there is good news. You don’t need to be a magician to turn unfinished products into finished ones and it’s usually much easier than you might think.

Underlying Causes

If you lack confidence:

You don’t have to be a world-renowned expert on a specific topic to provide value to your audience. Think of your role in your community and how you can put that into your product. You may not be the world’s leading psychologist, but if you have some advice to give on getting over a break up, getting out of an abusive relationship or dealing with a traumatic event…share it. Many times our customers are looking for OUR experience and OUR opinions – it’s the reason they read our blogs and sign up to our newsletters. They might also look to us for our humor, our encouragement or other things that are unique about us. Tap into what people ALREADY like about you and you’ll have a winning product.

If you desire perfection:

Nothing in the world is perfect and even if perfection existed, it would be different for each and every person. Because your definition of perfect is unlikely to be anyone elses, the quest for perfection is a futile exercise. Add to that, keeping your work hidden because it’s not “perfect” causes you to rob your audience of the help you can provide them. The need to be perfect is, really a shortsighted approach to serving one’s audience.

If you are short on time:

If there never seems to be enough time to finish a project, it might be time to take a really close look at all you are doing. There is no sense in juggling a bunch of stuff you can’t get done. Drop everything and focus on that one thing until it is complete.

If it’s not a matter of multiple projects for you, but too many individual tasks keeping you busy, it’s time to get help. Whether you outsource some tasks or take on a partner, something needs to be done. There is no sense running a business you don’t have time for. It’s a disservice to your audience because you aren’t delivering all that you can. And even more importantly, it’s a disservice to yourself because you’re going burn yourself out quickly and have very little to show for it.

Action Steps to Get The Unfinished to Finished

When you’re ready to just get ‘er done, here are some steps you can follow.

1. Make a product completion list.

Hopefully, you’ve already done this, but it may be one of the reasons you haven’t finished yet. Make a list of all the topics you’d like to cover in your product and the other components you might need like videos, checklists, spreadsheets or other tools. Once you have this list, really scrutinize it. Does your product really need all of this? Sometimes the best products are the most succinct and to-the-point ones that teach your audience a specific thing. Or can you break up your plan into multiple products? In other words, how can you trim it so it’s still valuable to your audience and you can get it done quickly?

You can also take advantage of hiring a ghostwriter or using PLR to fill in the blanks. (A great solution is-> Step-by-Step PLR Bundles with Photos and Screenshots) Or ask if a trusted fellow online business owner might be interested in contributing a specific component of your product. There are plenty of resources available to help you get things done.

2. Make a product publication and promotion list.

Of course, once the product is done, you have to get it out there. Make a list of what you need to get your product available to your customers and how you’ll promote it. Again, look at this list with scrutiny and ensure it only contains the necessary items to get your product published and seen. Of course, promotion is an ongoing thing and something you will develop over time, but we’re just talking about the initial launch of your product. Getting it out there is the first important step, so focus on that for now.

These types of tasks are often tasks that are easy to outsource to a Virtual Assistant or others with specific skills. Get someone on your team to help ensure you get things rolling.

3. Set a publication date goal.

Now’s the time to put your money where your mouth is. Decide when you’re launching and stick with it. If you have a set goal date, you’re likely to follow through. Give yourself enough time to complete everything, but keep the date close enough so that you’ll be motivated to keep working forward. Tell your blog readers and newsletter subscribers when it will be launching. Sharing it publicly will help ensure it gets done.

4. Make your schedule.

Plan the tasks you’ll do (or others will do) to get things done by the completion date. It’s okay if you find you run short on time in certain areas. When that happens, it’s always time to reevaluate the to-do list and adjust it to meet your publication goal. I’m not suggesting you do shoddy work, but the most successful entrepreneurs are able to roll with the punches and changes things as necessary. For example, if you find you can’t complete a certain component of your product, consider offering it as an unadvertised bonus a few days or week after you launch. Your customers will LOVE the extra stuff you gave them and you still get to finish your product as you hoped.

Final Thoughts

The real key takeaways here are to have a plan, but being okay with changing it as necessary. Be confident in yourself because your audience already has confidence in you, so deliver what they want.

Wrap-up from Nicole:
This is a great how-to for those infoproduct creators who are stuck.

Let me throw in one more thought for you. Granted, I’m sick as a dog right now so hopefully this makes sense. 🙂

As Alice said there is no perfect. You will never reach perfection. It’s impossible.

Think of the biggest and best in the business.

Microsoft. They release products in BETA and then do updates.

Apple. They have updates to their apps all the time.

What I normally do is release a product but state that the customers will get updates. Then, as I think of things I want to add to the product, I add it and then announce the update or extra info to my customers. That way I can make money while developing the best product that I possibly can, rather than waiting to release a perfect product.

Think you can do that, too? YES you can!

What you don’t want to do…

There have been several times I’ve WAITED to release a “perfect” product and then the information became obsolete. So, rather than helping people when the problem existed, I missed the boat – and missed the opportunity to help others.

One last thing.

As Alice mentioned, bigger is not always better. If you can focus in on a very specific problem and it’s solution, you can quickly create small reports and sell that report over and over and over

This guest posting has perfect timing! I’m currently working on a PLR package and I keep thinking of ways to expand it — make it better– make it bigger. Days are getting shorter it seems lol! Anyways, I love the update idea because I can see that can be both helpful to myself at removing the stress and helpful to those I sale to. I also like the to do list and product creation list idea! I currently use Actionmethod.com to plan my projects online but I’ve never used it for a creation to do list kind of thing. Super wonderful idea! Thanks for this — totally jumpstarted my lazy and tired feelings

When I do thing just in general, I like to make it prefect. Yes, I know nothing is perfect but I try to make it as near to that as I can. Sometimes I feel like my own biggest critic.
Like you say preparing and planning, need to be taken seriously.

I hear you, Simmeon. Most of us are our own worst critics and we need to get over that.

Of course, I definitely have some unfinished things, but not so much in the last couple of years. Most things do get finished, but sometimes they take on a new form because my plans evolve as needed. It’s great to be ambitious and have awesome products, but if getting them done on time becomes an issue, you have to make adjustments.

My daughter recommended setting aside 5 minutes a day to work on my ebook. It works like a charm. Some days 5 minutes is all it gets, but other days I get on a roll. Before I started doing that, I was getting nowhere.

Hi Alice thanks for having a time to have this post. There are things that is unplanned the usual output of it is unfinished. I don’t want to think that my work is everything goes perfect because it is a little bit frustration for me. Granting to read your post and learn something thank you so much for posting this.

Excellent selection of tips. From my own advice:
Even when you have lots of ideas to improve your service or product, saving some of them for later, it gives a fresh interest from buyers. You will have the opportunity to say: Look, I’m giving you a novelty, now it is even better!

What do you want to transform today?

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My mission: To help busy online marketers, specifically infoproduct sellers, to build sustainable online businesses that help them reach their financial and lifestyle goals while making both the web and the world a better place. And, hopefully having a lot of fun while doing it!